"(Ah, geez. I'll be glad when this stupid adventure's over with,)" Ginger complained. "(It's really hard for a girl to keep her fur clean when we're tracking through dirt and junk every day.)" Saying that, the absol began to lick her mane, trying to straighten it out as best she could.

"Oh." Because of their morning fright, Sidney had momentarily forgotten all about finding Zapdos. "Guess I should dress for the occation then," she said, giggling nervously. "I'll go change now and meet you guys out in the arena later." She waved to the gym leaders and returned to her room to get ready.

"(Hey, wait for me!)" Ginger called, chasing after the ninja. "(Don't leave me out here with all these old people!)"

"We're still short one warm body," Koga informed Surge. "The pact-maker--the most important person of all. You should go see if Michael is ready."

Mike got dressed, blah blah blah, got ready, etc; however, he was still in his room. Perhaps he was too nervous to do this whole pact-making thing. After all, the first two pacts weren't exactly easy, and Zapdos looked like the most angry of the three legendary birds.

_________________

Thu Feb 01, 2007 9:27 am

Gryphflame

Pokemon Master

Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2005 8:06 pmPosts: 1793Location: Lavender Town

"Oh don't you worry about m'boy Mike, he's been up at this hour since he was in diapers. I'm betting he's already packed 'n ready to head out, so the rest of you'd best be ready the same in ten minutes, or we'll be leavin' without ya!" Surge laughed heartily yet again, and turned to march back down the hallway he'd come from. "We'll be out in the main arena room in ten, Mike knows where to meet for a morning march."

In ten minutes time, everyone met out in the arena, fully dress and somewhat tired looking. Actually, it took Sidney eleven minutes to get ready, and that was after Koga had knocked on her door and told her to speed it up. They left early in the morning, so early, in fact, that it was still very dark outside, the sun barely peeking over the horizon--but once they reached the outskirts of town and started marching along the dirt path between Vermilion and Saffron City, the sun was already high above them, bathing the endless grass fields in light.

To pass the time, Koga was telling another one of his stories--but unlike his usual made up junk, this story was actually true--mostly about Sidney when she was a child. “When I came in from training, I was shocked to find that the platter was missing a number of rice balls," he said, laughing, "just like what had been happening all week. And I asked Sidney again if she’d seen them and she would always very innocently tell me no. But I always knew she was the one taking them, as if the trail of rice leading to her bedroom wasn’t sufficient evidence. I expected maybe that she was just hungry. She was a growing girl after all. But one day I came into her room and found her feeding a meowth through her window. She begged me to let him stay at the dojo, but at the time, I had a strong intolerance for meowths after having an unpleasant experience with a talking one in Team Rocket, and I told her no. She was distraught for days and refused to do her exercises--so one day I decided to take her out for ice cream, and she forgot all about it after that.”

"I remember that meowth," Sidney said, snickering as well. "I nicknamed him Oscar. He used to bring me old coins and bottlecaps he found lying around the city--anything shiny."

Cassius was tickled by the story, not finding it hard to picture an apprentice Sidney deciding to help out some young pokemon, using very ninja-like (albeit then unrefined) techniques to do so. For once, he was grateful for the old ninja's stories, and surprised himself by finding them more interesting than even his ghostly tales.

So it was something of a disappointment when Surge announced loudly that they were nearly there, pointing out the tip of the ridge in the distance. "Hrm, hard t'see if Zapdos is in there from this angle. You cadets ready for this?"

"He's in there, alright," Koga said, pointing up at the sky. "Look at that." Above them, a strange dark vortex of clouds had collected, shooting off lightning bolts and rumbling ominously.

"That's unusual," Sidney said, looking up as well. "What could it mean?"

"(It means that Zapdos is probably still pissed off, and we shouldn't bug him,)" Ginger answered, slowing to a stop. "(Hey, listen, guys,)" she said, suddenly very serious. "(I-I've had this really bad feeling ever since we left this morning. I...think it's my instincts trying to tell me that disaster's coming. I really really don't think we should be going in there.)"

Last edited by Flannery on Tue Feb 20, 2007 9:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Thu Feb 08, 2007 1:51 pm

Sneaky Sneasel

Gym Leader

Joined: Sat Feb 12, 2005 5:21 pmPosts: 3128Location: College

"(Gulp. I better not be the one fighting him then,)" Lighthouse stated, "(Maybe he should use Static instead...he's a lot stronger than me,)" that comment was mostly directed towards Mike. Obviously Lighthouse didn't want to be the one to face a Zapdos, and a ticked off one at that.

Mike wasn't paying too much attention to his Ampharos; he was too focused on the upcoming task. Mostly likely he was going to use his Raichu, but last time that happened their battle was interrupted.

"Hopefully that won't happen again...this time I plan on winning, and renweing the pact."

_________________

Fri Feb 09, 2007 9:37 am

Gryphflame

Pokemon Master

Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2005 8:06 pmPosts: 1793Location: Lavender Town

"(I think that's a good plan)" said Pandora, nearly as nervous as Ginger and Lighthouse. "(Maybe the fuzzball's right for a change...)"

"Eh, what's all that blathering on about disaster?" put in Surge. Like his son, he had the somewhat unusual ability to quickly pick up on what pokemon were trying to say. "Why when I was your age I faced off against Zapdos in the middle of a hurricane in a t-shirt and shorts, with only my Raichu to help me. Well, Koga 'n Sabrina too, but they weren't much help at the time. You three've got it easy, with us veterans here to watch your backs. So go show that bird who's boss, m'boy!" Mike was treated to an encouraging thump on the back with Surge's usual amount of enthusiastic force.

"And we can't give up after coming this far," Sidney pointed out, already climbing over the sharp dip. She held onto the ledge, slowly easing herself down into the crater. "Come on, guys. I think I can already see him from here."

"(Wait, Sidney!)" Ginger shouted right after Sidney had disappeared. "(Don't go without me!)"

"I think we should listen to the pokemon," Koga said quietly, eyes still focused intently on the swirling thunderstorm. "I sense something as well, so we should proceed with caution. Keep your pokemon at the ready, just in case." Saying that, he rested a hand on the ball of one of his pokemon, then followed after his student.

Cassius gave Pandora a quick look, then ran to catch up with Sidney. If something was going to happen, it wasn't going to be just any pokemon ready beside her, it was going to be him. He caught up to her just as she was lowering herself into the abyss.

At the top of the ledge, he peered down into the crater. Despite the time since the crater's appearance, the ground was black, all black save for a pile of spiky yellow feather bundled up in the middle, breathing slowly. Its breaths coincided exactly with the rise and fall of the storm, and thunder struck violently and rather frequently near the barely moving bird.

The absol didn't seem to realize how deep the crater actually was, because she carelessly jumped off, screaming as she fell past Sidney, who was still climbing down the steep wall. Lucky for the pokemon, her trainer had amazing reflexes and managed to snatch her out of the air before her rather disastrous meeting with the floor. Ginger stared wide-eyed at the black ground below as Sidney held onto her tail with one hand and onto the wall with the other. She relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief--that is, until Sidney purposely let her go, and she landed with a loud thud on the dirt.

A moment later, Sidney dropped down, landing beside the now dirty absol. "Cassius!" Sidney called, looking up at the ghost trainer while shielding her eyes from the flashes. "You coming down? Or should I send Abina up to get you?"

Mike nearly fell over from one of his dad's usual overenthusiastic shoves, but managed to regain his balance. "If you say so, Dad," he replied nervously.

"Well, I might as well get this over with," Mike mumbled as he approached the drop off point of the crater.

_________________

Sat Feb 17, 2007 4:57 pm

Gryphflame

Pokemon Master

Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2005 8:06 pmPosts: 1793Location: Lavender Town

"Ah, coming!" said Cassius, pausing for a moment to glance nervously down at the crater below. He half climbed, half slid down to where Sidney and Ginger waited, utterly covering his clothes in the dark soot in the process. Well, maybe the rain will wash it off. If it ever starts raining, that is. Despite the violent, loud thunderstorm overhead, the area was bone dry, though you could almost feel the electricity in the air.

"You're up then, Mike" he said, calling up to the two camouflage-clad trainers at the top of the crater. Surge smiled, and performed an odd sort of run-slide maneuver that got him down the dusty incline with surprising speed, joining the others at the bottom.

As soon as Cassius had reached the bottom of the crater, Sidney wandered over to help dust the dirty soot off his gym suit. She managed to remove most of it, and then moved on to rubbing at a black smudge on his cheek with one end of her scarf.

Ginger was getting irritated just watching, feeling very ignored. Why did she ever think that hooking those two up was a good idea? Stupid ghost. "(Sidney!)" she snapped. "(Now's not the time to be worrying about that! I don't think Zapdos is gonna care whether we're clean or not when he's frying us alive!)"

"Ah, sorry," Sidney replied sheepishly, quickly clearing away the last of the unsightly mark on Cassius' face before moving away from the other trainer. She turned her attention to the last of their group still stuck at the top of the drop. "Hurry, guys!" she shouted. "Before Zapdos takes off!" Just as she finished speaking, Koga dropped straight down to the ground, landing rather gracefully between Sidney and Surge. He turned to Surge and smiled slyly.

"Wow, Master!" Sidney said, amazed. "I thought you were too old to still be able do that."

Mike tried to slide down like his dad, but after immediately almost losing his balance and falling face first, he switched to a regular kind of slide. It took a bit longer, but he was down. His Amphaors soon followed suit, imitating Mike, and landing right besides him.

"Well, here goes nothing...again. Hey Zapdos! I challenge you to a pact...battle...thing," his voice trailed off. "Maybe I should've rephrase that," he mumbled.

_________________

Fri Mar 02, 2007 9:04 am

Gryphflame

Pokemon Master

Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2005 8:06 pmPosts: 1793Location: Lavender Town

Zapdos shuddered all over in response, his feathers ruffling and small bolts of electricity sparking everywhere. After a long, silent pause, his head emerged from the ball of pointed feathers, his long beak dipped towards the ground and his eyes staring intently at Mike as he turned himself all the way around very, very slowly, adjusting himself so that he was standing facing the group. He spasmed again, and more small shocks filled the air.

One may have hit Cassius, or perhaps it was just fright. Either way, his hair was defying gravity more than usual, and he looked quite worried. "Th-that's not Zapdos" he said quietly. Being something of an expert on the subject, he could sometimes tell when someone was not in control of their own body, and Zapdos showed all the signs...

"How very astute of you." A voice filled the crater, seeming to resonate from everywhere at once. Had it come from Zapdos? No, this voice was too calm belong to a wrathful god--almost derisive. "I've been waiting for you a long time."

The disconcerting presence seemed to have disappeared for a moment, and then the voice rang clear again, piercing directly into their minds. "Heh, very well..." There was a blinding flash, and for a moment, Koga had thought that it was another one of Zapdos' shocks--but when his eyes finally adjusted after the appearance of the bright light, he saw a figure standing before the sickly god. At first he didn't want to believe who he was seeing, but when he saw a familiar alakazam at the person's side, its fierce gaze void of just as much emotion as Zapdos', there was no denying who its trainer was.

Mike sheilded his eyes as well, and was just as surprised as, if not more than, Koga.

"Sabrina? What the heck? I mean...why?" Mike asked. "What did you do to Zapdos?"

Lighthouse quickly glanced at Sabrina's Alakazam, but then soon hid behind his trainer.

_________________

Sat Mar 03, 2007 4:36 pm

Gryphflame

Pokemon Master

Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2005 8:06 pmPosts: 1793Location: Lavender Town

"N...no, that's not Sabrina, either" said Cassius quietly. In the growing darkness, the eerie glow of his bright red eyes shone through, narrow slits in the storm and ash growing very thin as he stared down the old gymleader. But what... what on earth could possess Sabrina, of all people? Her mental strength is, I have to admit, astounding. And it must be her with control over Zapdos, how could someone take control of all that?! Aside from worried, the ghost was admittedly a little jealous, wondering if he could have had the same success in possession.

“(A GHOST!)” Ginger blurted out, appearing terrified and hiding a bit behind Cassius and Sidney. After spending the past few weeks around Cassius and his team of ghostly minions, the darkling had become somewhat of an expert on detecting the stench of the dead--and from what she could pick up with her tiny nose, Sabrina reeked of the afterlife. But there was something still very odd about her smell, which Ginger couldn’t quite put her claw on.

“(This is really strange,)” she said, speaking to Cassius while trying to keep her attention on the three threats standing before them. “(She smells like a ghost, but nothing like you or Pandora. What could it mean?)”

Sabrina--or what looked like Sabrina--turned her eerie gaze to focus on Cassius, her distant eyes meeting with his angry glare. Her face seemed to slowly twist into an expression of annoyance, which was probably the most emotion she had ever shown since first meeting the ghostly trainer. “So,” she said curtly, “you’re the infamous King of the Dead I’ve heard so much about?” She took a moment to tear her gaze from his and move it up and down his body, giving him an appraising look. “You don’t look as powerful as you claim to be,” she scoffed. “Either you’re stronger than you appear, or my pupil was more incompetent than I predicted.”

The old ghost looked uneasy at being so appraised by someone who had probably died much more recently, and he fixed his own gaze on this eerie challenger, who seemed to have a great deal of power. "You're right, Ginger" he said slowly, still fixing his eyes on Sabrina.

Once Ginger had pointed it out, Cassius had seen what she meant about ghosts. The thing inside Sabrina was one, but not a ghost pokemon, or even a restless pokemon spirit like Taro's mother had been. It was something even more emotional, and even more dangerous. A rare sort of creation whose powers no one had ever quite understood, since they could manifest in hundreds of different ways and be remarkably deadly even when newly dead.

"She... it is dead, but it is nothing like Pandora or me. It... it used to be human."

"You're a sharp one," said the strange, mysterious being gazing at them through their friend’s sinister, red eyes. "Impressive, considering your inability to read minds.”

It was Sidney who spoke up next. "Your pupil?” she asked, baffled. And then it finally clicked. “You mean Nikolas? Nikolas was your pupil?!” It made sense now! Shade had done all those bad things because his master commanded it. Then that means that this person is--!

“The Neo Rocket leader?” the ghost said, and Sidney appeared even more taken aback. “Yes, naturally. I am the unknown founder of the secret organization known as Neo Rocket. That boy you call Nikolas was my student, who I took in when this old man rejected him.” She pointed a finger at Koga, who looked startled, and then grim, his expression becoming very staid.

“I could see that the young one had potential to be a skilled fighter, but he was also very naïve, which I used to my advantage.” She smiled. “You see, I too, was once an innocent youth, and I was brought up to believe in the false teachings of my master. He believed that my strength should be used for justice, when, deep down, I knew the full potential of my power. The strongest should always take their place at the top in this world. After all, there will always come a time when the student exceeds the master.” She looked back at the old ninja. “Wouldn’t you agree, Master Koga?”

“Tetsuo,” the ashen-haired man hissed, gritting his teeth. “What have you done to yourself?!” he demanded, outraged that his old student would be corrupt enough to take away the free will of the woman he cared for just for spite. “Obviously this quest for power has brought you nothing but madness, and your own demise!”

“Oh, but master, it’s brought me so much more than that,” the thing inside Sabrina replied, and as she spoke, she was joined by another voice, a deeper, more masculine voice, which was the same one that had rung inside their minds moments before. “Only in death was I able to claim this power, and now look at me.” As the strange abomination spoke, an indiscernible bluish-gray mist began seeping from Sabrina’s body, dancing around her like a slow fire and completely shrouding her like a living veil. “I’ve added this woman’s strength to my own, and now I’m strong enough to control even the gods themselves. There’s nothing left to stop me, and after I destroy all of you, no one will know about my scheme to take over until it’s too late.”

"Shh," Mike told his Ampharos. "I mean, things look bad, but..." he couldn't figure out how to finish his sentence; he half expected the human ghost to read his mind and say it for a moment. Perhaps it was just sheer terror and shock that he couldn't finish it, or maybe there was just nothing else to say.

"Why are you doing this in the first place?" Mike asked.

_________________

Fri May 11, 2007 4:42 pm

Gryphflame

Pokemon Master

Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2005 8:06 pmPosts: 1793Location: Lavender Town

From below Sabrina and her undead puppeteer, its second puppet rose. The giant god-bird brought his head off the ground slowly, as if in a daze, and looked at the humans now standing in his crater. He stared for a long while at Surge, shaking a little as he tried to get to his feet. The storm roared and three bolts of lighting hit Zapdos squarely on the head, which seemed to help rather than hinder his awakening.

"Thataboy, Zapdos, fight it!" said Surge, and Zapdos seemed to hesitate, staring at the old gymleader. But as another bolt of lightning hit his body, the bird turned instead to Mike, and screeched out a challenge.

"(WE FIGHT! THE VOICE SAYS WE FIGHT HUMAN, WE FIGHT YOU!)" squawked the loud and not particularly eloquent thunder god. "(WE FIGHT YOU FIRST, THEN KILL ALL OTHER TRAITOR HUMANS!)"

Although the huge yellow bird was making quite the display, Cassius was more interested in his fellow ghost. "You're an idiot, you'll destroy the world before you control it if you tamper with the gods!" He reached for his pokeballs, releasing Maiden and Godfather simultaneously. If this… thing wanted to destroy the world, he'd have to get through them first.

"And is destroying the world such a bad thing?" the other ghost replied, his voice one with Sabrina's--and as he spoke, the wisps of mist began to take form of a tall figure in front of the psychic trainer. It was Tetsuo--or what remained of him--still dressed in his traditional ninja garb. His face had extremely sharp features, his eyes so narrow that they were nothing more than slits, and he had a small goatee underneath his lower lip. It was hard to say whether his hair was naturally blue or that death had made it so, but it swept down to his waist, tied back in high ponytail that floated weightlessly behind him. "Only by destruction can there be reconstruction. I will make a new world--one that is governed by the elite, with me as their leader."

Koga was still grinding his teeth. He really has gone mad, the old man thought bitterly. "Michael!" he shouted, avoiding discretion due to the fact that Tetsuo could penetrate his thoughts anyway. "You take on Zapdos and try to reinstate the pact with him! We'll handle this vermin!" Saying that, he sent out three of his pokemon, which consisted of a muk, an ariados, and a crobat.

"Vermin? Heh, that's what you've always thought of me as, haven't you?" Tetsuo sneered. "What makes you so confident to think you can defeat me? I've seen the future. Your world will lay in ruins."

"Better then letting you get away with it!" Sidney retorted, sending out a few of her pokemon as well--Abina and Lulu, who were shortly joined by Ginger as the small absol rushed forward to protect her best friend.

"Heh, so be it," Tetsuo snorted. "Pity you won't be able to see what I have planned for this world." He turned his head to look at the alakazam by his side, Sabrina's head mimicking his. The powerful pokemon's blank eyes met his gaze, and then he floated forward, his body glowing a bright pink as he began to use his psychic attack against the seemingly overwhelming number of enemies.

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